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20 Dollars HSBC

Issuer Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation
Year 1993-2002
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Currency Dollar (1863-date)
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Obverse lettering The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited 香港上海匯豐銀行有限公司 Promises to pay the bearer on demand at its Office here TWENTY HONGKONG DOLLARS 憑票即付 港幣貳拾元 承董事會命 By order of the Board of Directors EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR 執行董事 HONGKONG 1st JANUARY 1993 香港一九九三年一月一日
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Variants P#201a - 01.01.1993 & 01.01.1994
P#201b - 01.01.1995 & 01.01.1996
P#201c - 01.01.1997 & 01.07.1997
P#201d - 01.01.1998, 01.01.1999, 01.01.2000, 01.01.2001 & 01.01.2002
Comments

The P#201 series spans nearly a decade, bridging Hong Kong's final years under British administration and the first years after the 1997 handover to China. HSBC retained its right to issue currency under the new Special Administrative Region — one of the more unusual arrangements in post-colonial monetary history, where a private commercial bank continued printing legal tender alongside the government.

De La Rue's work on this series is technically sound but unremarkable for the printer. The watermark remains the primary security feature, modest by the standards already established in contemporaneous issues elsewhere.